“Betts would kill me if I told him too much, but I thought I would visit a few places that she loved and maybe let him know a bit about his aunt’s life and talent. What about you, Benji? I’m sure your plan wasn’t to sail to Taipei on a freighter.”
“Yeah, you are correct there, but my plans have been decided by others recently. Confucius says, ‘Wherever you go, go with all your heart.’ So I’m going to let my heart do the leading.”
“And where does your heart say you must go, Benji?”
“Actually, both my heart and my mind say I should go with you and Konnor to Shanghai.”
Steven thought about that as he tried to cool the coffee enough to drink it. It wasn’t his plan to have another person tag along, but if it was going to be anyone, who could he trust more than Benjiro? “Eh, I guess you’re welcome to tag along with us. I was hoping for an adventure, but nothing like the last port. Konnor was thinking the Taipei Wild West theme park, but we got the Hong Kong Wild East villain adventure.”
“By the way, I talked a little more with the B&B owner about what happened…” Benjiro started to say, just as Konnor came wandering up.
“Man, I slept until almost noon. Mom never lets me sleep that late,” he said.
“Yeah, well, Mom doesn’t keep you out till two in the morning, wrestling with Triad gangsters, either,” Steven replied, giving his son a one-armed good-morning hug.
“Dad, there’s something I didn’t show you,” Konnor said, not quite knowing if he’d get in trouble over his next revelation or not.
“What is it, Sport?”
Konnor pulled the money clip from his front pocket, still stuffed with currency.
Steven quickly palmed the golden jewelry and handed his coffee cup to Benjiro. “Let’s not flash that around the ship, Sport,” Steven said. “Captain runs a pretty tight ship, but for every five good sailors there’s liable to be a rotten apple in the bunch, just like anywhere in life.” Inspecting the clip as closely as he dared in broad daylight, he whistled lowly and traded Benjiro for the two coffee cups.
Benjiro silently looked at the engraving on the clip, the good quality Spanish-looking coin set on the face, and the one-and-a-half-centimeter wad of bills the clip contained, with a five hundred denomination showing on top. He handed it back to Steven silently.
“I would be very careful who sees the markings on that clip, my friend,” Benjiro said.
“Tell us the story of how you got this, Konnor,” Steven said.
Taipei Wild West
It was a relatively short distance from Hong Kong to Taipei, only a couple of days, and Steven worked most of the hours he wasn’t sleeping. Benjiro didn’t feel too bad about it, because Konnor really seemed to be enjoying getting to know him as tito Benjiro. Benjiro was teaching him tai chi, and in turn, Konnor was reading to Benjiro.
Steven told Benjiro that reading out loud to his parents was one of Konnor’s favorite pastimes. It was one which Steven thoroughly enjoyed. Konnor chose to read ‘Treasure Island’ to Benjiro, who assumed it was chosen because of the money clip. Steven was convinced the coin mounted to the clip was a Spanish Doubloon.
By the end of the long two days, the book was done and Konnor knew a few basic moves of tai chi.
“Tito Benji, are you going to go to the Wild West theme park with us when we get to Taipei?” Konnor asked. It was a couple hours out of port and Konnor had been becoming more and more obsessed with the park.
“I might, Konnor. Your dad said we had twenty-four hours in port again. Tell me what’s in the theme park,” Benjiro replied.
“I want to see the ‘Wild West’. It’s just like the Cowboy and Indian movies from America,” Konnor answered.
“Is it just Wild West?” Benjiro asked.
“No, but the other part is called ‘South Pacific,” Konnor answered gloomily. “I already know about the South Pacific. It’s where I live, right? I wanna see the Wild West.”
“Hey, no offense meant, Konnor, I’m just asking. I could do with a horse ride into the sunset myself, kiddo,” Benjiro said, trying to backpedal from the question that seemed to cause Konnor’s mood swing.
“I don’t want to ride into the sunset until I’ve killed all the bad guys!” Konnor replied, quickly jumping around the edge of a crate lashed to the decking. He pulled out his right first finger, cocked his thumb up, and fired off a round in Benjiro’s direction. “Pawchewie!” he yelled, ducking back behind the crate.
Benjiro played along, throwing himself down to the deck and doing a death scene. “I’ve been shot! Now I’ll just dry up and turn into a tumbling tumbleweed…”
#
On land once again, Benjiro decided to let Steven and Konnor visit the theme park on their own while he did some investigation into the markings on the money clip Konnor so dangerously acquired.
He visited the main branch of the Taipei public library first and began with a general wander about.
Benjiro spoke Japanese, Tagalog, and English fluently, and could read Mandarin, but knew almost nothing of the Taiwanese dialect spoken on this island. He could, of course, read many of the characters of the Chinese language, those in kanji form especially. The trouble was, he was pretty sure the meanings were different in many of them. As he moved through the library he confirmed this suspicion enough to seek assistance.
Asking around, he finally found a staff member that had enough confidence in her ability to speak English that she would try to help him.
“Oh, I’m so glad you will help me. This is such a great place of knowledge,” he said, hoping to win a bit of favor by flattery.
“Thank you, but I just work here,” the young librarian answered.
Deciding on a research strategy on the spur of the moment, Benjiro continued with, “I’m a sailor and I have a lot of time on my hands when I am not busy working.”
She nodded.
Okay, the friendly approach might not work, he thought.
“In my free time I like to write stories for my grandson,” Benjiro said, hoping to gain the simple family man favor.
“Ah, I loved to hear stories from my uncle,” the librarian replied. Benjiro could see the tiniest bit of softness come into her eyes.
“My grandson loves to hear stories of adventure and spies,” he told the young woman. “What kind of stories did your uncle tell you?”
“I used to love Uncle’s stories of sea monsters,” she answered. “He told of armies of fish with bayonets mounted to their heads, whales with battering rams that could break up ships, and giant squid with arms that could snatch men right off the deck.”
“Wow, those sound scary!” he said.
“What sort of spy adventures are you writing for your grandson?” the librarian asked.
“I’m trying to write a story about underground criminals,” Benjiro answered.
“History or present day?” she asked.
“Oh, more present day, I guess. You know boys like all the new gadgets.”
“Okay,” she said, turning to begin a search, “I’m sure we have some periodical articles, but there might not be much more than that.” Continuing to look, she said, “There are references to articles about ‘Triad’ organizations that are linked to organized crime, but we don’t have anything here. It’s possible that the National Central Library might have more in their collection than we have.”
An hour later he was sitting in the Taiwan National Central Library with two volumes and a few periodicals in front of him. He was browsing, catching article titles and headlines anywhere from five hundred years ago to five weeks ago. It seemed that ‘Triad’ was a name given to Chinese organized crime by the British during their control over Singapore and Hong Kong, probably because of perceived triangular symbolism used by some of the criminal organizations.
There were half a dozen early organizations mentioned, many starting out as some sort of fraternal, religious, or political organization. Some of these were forced underground due to persecution or pol
itical upheaval, and it was assumed or insinuated that some of the organizations transitioned to illegal activities.
Whether or not any of the really old organizations were actually precursors to the Triads wasn’t completely clear, but one of the volumes he perused had a lot of information about current-day Asian organized crime. It seemed to be all over Asia, but he read specific articles connecting Kowloon in Hong Kong, to Macao, and more significantly, to Shanghai.
He’d traced the characters on the money clip to confirm what they meant, as well. Some of them were numbers, he thought, and some were sequences with structures. The librarian at the National Central Library confirmed that some were numbers and she studied the sequences with structures for a few minutes before saying she thought it meant ‘three harmonies’. “Maybe something like ‘three harmonies society’,” she remarked finally. “Where did you see these?” she asked.
“On a piece of paper, in a bar, in central Taipei,” he answered. He figured he was being overly cautious, but there was no way he would give anyone any reason to follow him to the docks.
When he had read as much as he wanted about Triads and organized crime, he set out to do the final task he and Steven agreed needed to be done in Taipei. He went to the bank.
Upon entering, he asked to speak privately with a bank supervisor.
When Mr. Tsai arrived, he addressed Benjiro, “How may I be of assistance today, sir?”
Benjiro’s first fleeting thought was, You can tell me who does your hair and where you practice Vinyasa yoga…or is it Ashtanga? That body…
Luckily he kept that thought within his head and went instead with, “I have a piece of currency I would like you to look at. I received it in Hong Kong as change for a souvenir piece I purchased in a market. The souvenir is lovely, but a friend of mine said the currency looked funny and that I should ask about it before I tried to use it.”
“And what denomination are you asking about?” Mr. Tsai asked, his energy smoothly transferring from left to right as his eyes flowed from the floor back up to Benjiro’s chin after his bow.
“It is five hundred Hong Kong dollars,” Benjiro replied, continuing in his head, Vinyasa, for sure…
Mr. Tsai asked Benjiro to step to his desk for more privacy, took out a magnifying glass and requested Benjiro’s bill. It was one of the new Hong Kong colony design, printed by the Bank of China first in 1994, for post-British control.
“Excuse me, let me go ask a colleague to collaborate with me,” Mr. Tsai said. He walked several desks away, greeted a woman sitting at a similar-looking polished wooden desk and gestured toward Benjiro, inviting her to follow him.
“This is Ms. Wang. She’s in our fraud department. She’s the counterfeit currency expert here,” Mr. Tsai said. Ms. Wang was a very pretty, but she didn’t hold a candle to Mr. Tsai, at least as far as Benjiro was concerned. Mr. Tsai seemed to understand this and stayed close by.
Ms. Wang also took out a magnifying glass and studied the bill. Then took out a jeweler’s eye piece and studied it some more. “Excuse me, Mr…pardon, what is your name, sir?” she asked.
He bowed deeply, looking from Mr. Tsai’s non-descript, scuffed, black leather shoes to Ms. Wang’s four-inch stiletto-heeled lizard skin, obviously hand-sewn pumps, and replied, “It’s Toma-san, thank you, Ms. Wang.”
“Mr…Toma-san. Okay, thank you. Do you mind, Mr. Toma-san, if I take this bill and make a Xerox copy? For our records and for further study?” she asked.
“Of course not, Ms. Wang,” he answered, continuing in his head, I’ll stay and stare at Mr. Tsai, which he did. And Mr. Tsai stared right back. There was not a tense muscle in the man’s body. For sure it’s Vinyasa, Benjiro thought.
And then it was over.
Ms. Wang returned carrying her copies. She brought back a bill, stamped with the word COUNTERFEIT across it, handed it to Benjiro and said, “I’m afraid it was counterfeit, Mr…Toma-san. We must always stamp them when we find them. I’ve copied it for our records as well. At this point it is only a souvenir.”
Benjiro bowed low once again and replied, “I am sorry.”
Mr. Tsai bowed, but then he offered his hand, which he didn’t do upon meeting him. Benjiro took it, and as they shook, Mr. Tsai covered Benjiro’s hand with his left hand, making him aware of a small piece of paper he’d just transferred into his palm.
Benjiro said, “Thank you both for your assistance,” turned, and walked out of the bank. When he was steps outside the bank he discreetly opened the note.
“Lucky Lantern bar in five minutes,” it said, in Japanese.
At the corner of the block he looked around and saw, on the other side and halfway up the block, the Lucky Lantern sign.
#
He’d debated going to the bar, assuming it was a pick-up line from the handsome bank supervisor, but in the end decided he would meet him, just in case it was…well, in any case.
Benjiro just sat down at the bar with his beer when the bartender asked him, “Are you Thompson? There’s a phone call for you.”
He almost said no, then thought better of it. “Yes, I am Mr. Toma-san.” He was handed the receiver from behind the bar.
“Listen carefully. You’re in danger. Check the bill you were given. It is not the same as the one you brought into the bank.” The person on the other end of the conversation, he assumed it was Mr. Tsai, then gave him another address and told him to meet him there in ten minutes. “Ask to use the bathroom down the hall from the bar, but skip the bathroom door and keep going. The door at the end of the hall on the right goes directly into the alley. Leave by that door and turn left. Ten minutes. I’ll meet you. Try not to be followed.”
Thinking quickly, Benjiro spoke into the receiver after the caller hung up. “Sure, I’ll be here for a while yet. See you later at Hotel Ibez for dinner.” Then he smiled and handed the phone back to the bartender.
Minutes later he was finding his way, in a roundabout manner, to the new address. He second-guessed himself a hundred times as he continued to follow this stranger’s directions in a situation that could be a hoax, or even worse, but finally he walked up to the new address.
It was more of a dive than the first bar, with no particular signage out front, but a clearly marked address over the entrance matching the one the caller gave him. The entrance looked like a cave. Were there any lights on at all in there? There was music and lots of cigarette smoke. He could also make out the mirror behind a bar at the far wall, so he screwed up his courage and continued into the dimly lit space. Almost immediately he felt a touch on his arm and heard, “This way, Mr. Toma-san,” accompanied by the spicy sweet breath of Mr. Tsai.
Then the smile slid across his face. “Complicated meet-up strategy, don’t you think?” he replied.
His companion slid into a chair next to the wall by a tiny table. “It’s not a meet-up strategy. You’re in a lot of danger, I think.” Mr. Tsai quit talking to him as a waiter, dressed in very tight orange pants and a low cut muscle tee, sauntered over and squatted by their table.
“What can I do for you gentlemen?” he asked, a provocative grin on his rather overly thin face.
“Two beers,” Mr. Tsai said while dismissing him with a wave of his hand. The waiter stalked away.
“Listen to me,” he continued to Benjiro, “I saw Ms. Wang looking at the bill you brought in. She didn’t photocopy it; she slipped it into her drawer and took out another bill. She photocopied that bill, brought it back to you and stamped it as counterfeit.”
“Why would she even do that?” Benjiro asked. He took out the bill he’d been given by Ms. Wang and looked at it in the very poor light of the gay bar. “I’d be hard pressed to tell the difference; however, I did write down the serial number before I left the…before I came to the bank. I can double-check when I return.”
“I suspect you’ll find it’s different, although I’m not the counterfeit expert, Ms. Wang is,” Mr. Tsai said. Shaking his head, he continued, “She’s my dir
ect boss and reports only to the bank president, but I think she’s no good.”
“What will you do?” Benjiro asked.
“I’m not sure, but it’s you I’m worried about. I saw her signal one of the guards as she made her photocopy. That’s why I slipped you the note. I left by a back exit shortly after I called you and watched as you left the bar. I didn’t see him follow, but who knows. I think you might be in trouble,” Mr. Tsai answered.
The now disinterested, skinny waiter dropped off their drinks and took the money Benjiro offered, promising to bring change back soon.
“So what do you think I should do?” Benjiro asked, taking a sip.
“Can you get out of town?” Mr. Tsai asked.
“That’s possible, I guess, but is there something we can do to stop Ms. Wang?” Benjiro continued.
“Listen, if that was truly a counterfeit Hong Kong five-hundred-dollar bill, it’s almost assuredly the work of the Triad. I’ve seen Ms. Wang get security involved and I know the proper procedures for what should have happened if it was. She’s done things in the past by the book. This is not one of those times. I think this is bigger.”
“I’m afraid of what I’ve dragged you into,” Benjiro told Mr. Tsai. “Isn’t there a way I can help?”
“I don’t see how. I just wanted you to be aware of the danger you’re in. You should get out. Don’t be followed. Leave town…this bar also has a back alley door. Use it.” Mr. Tsai put his hand on Benjiro’s arm and squeezed it.
While Benjiro was reviewing his options, Mr. Tsai said, “Damn it…they’re here now. You need to leave.”
Benjiro glanced up in time to see the skinny waiter point in their direction, and saw a tall man in a suit look straight at him. Benjiro bolted for the back door with Mr. Tsai right on his heels.
As they came through the back door they both realized that this sort of trick, leaving by a typically unused back door, only worked multiple times with the dim-witted. They charged out, face to face with the gun of the accomplice of the man coming through the door behind them.
“Hands up,” the accomplice said, as the tall man closed the door he’d come out of and blocked it off. Both Benjiro and Mr. Tsai put their hands in the air and were backed further into the narrow alley.
One Fish, Two Fish, Big Fish, Little Fish: Silver Dawn (Smugglers In Paradise Book 2) Page 8
